Here is Chapter 2 of Loving Pain! I hope you enjoy it.

XerxesWolf- Here is the next chapter. Hope its to your liking~!

Chapter 2: The Past

Scientists had been studying the human minds capabilities before The Beginning happened. In retrospect The Beginning was caused by that research. It was forbidden to experiment on a living human though so they worked underground. Sort of like the Black Market if you think about it. Ichigo started in that soft voice of his, still looking out of the window instead of at Kisuke who was listening intently. That was over 100 years ago and why the future, which is where we are now 100 years later, is worse off now than it was then in terms of science. I was the human they tested on, the cause of The Beginning. But showing you would make more sense.

Water, cold and warm at the same time, surrounded the boy with a shocking orange hair color. He was just a boy, not even ten yet. An oxygen mask covered his mouth and nose as he floated inside the tank filled with water. People were rushing all about, their voices overlapping each other, not even noticing the brown eyes that stared down at them. Slowly the water drained out of the tank, signifying it was time for another experiment. A woman stood in front of the tank, watching the boy slowly slide to the bottom and stand on shaking legs. Her dark black hair tied in a braid at the back always helped the boy to relax, because he knew this woman. Faces blended together, but as long as she kept her hair the same then he would know. And she knew it too, for he had told her that.

The woman held her hand out to him and he took it, feeling the warmth of it through his skin. Nemu, he started, trying to think of the words he wanted to say to her as they made their way to the labs, what's going to happen to me? She looked down at him and the boy could see a smallest hint of a smile even if he could not really see her facial expression.

"They are going to give you an antidote, Ichigo." Nemu said in her soft voice. Ichigo loved her voice but the words finally registered in his mind. Antidote? They were going to give him an antidote for something they caused? Instantly he was wary and on alert, reaching out with the curse they gave him to see what the surrounding people in long white coats knew. Their voices filled his head as soon as he did so. He's too dangerous... Put him down... We shouldn't have made him... The power to do anything... Death. With a gasp Ichigo pulled away from Nemu's warm hand, pure terror in his eyes as he looked around at the people who had equal terror in their expressions- the expressions he had never allowed himself to see until now.

Anger erupted from his very core. They had taken away his life on the outside to do those painful, excruciating, experiments that had nearly killed him every time. And now they want to "put him down" as if he was some animal? Ichigo backed away from the woman reaching out to him, the woman who knew and still lied to him. His anger was growing, rapidly escalating in strength to the point were those white coated scientists couldn't handle the pressure. He heard more than saw the popping of their heads as their brains overloaded from Ichigo's. He wanted to kill every single one of the people in this whole entire facility. He wanted everything to die. They wanted to kill him? They would be killed first!

One by one the scientists died, their blood sliding across the cement floor and staining it red. Ichigo himself had been showered with the blood, his eyes dead as he walked forward to the center of his hell. They were right to be scared of the power they had given him, of his power. Everything would be destroyed, all the data, all the tools, all the technology, and all of the people.

Nemu watched in morbid fascination as Ichigo walked away, as all the scientists who were around him spontaneously combusted or their heads exploded. She didn't understand why Ichigo hadn't killed her. But then she remembered something the boy said to her before. "You feel like a mother." Ichigo was still a child, she realized, who was forced to endure things that no human had the right to endure. He had craved the warmth of someone who he felt might be able to love him. And Nemu did love him. With her resolve laying heavily on her mind she followed after the boy she loved as if he were her own. As she caught up to him, having only slipped on the slick bloody surface once, she reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, a smile on his face as he turned around until she saw his dead vacant eyes and the smile slowly faded. Before she knew what was happening a searing pain shot through her body, on the inside, and it felt as if her organs were being melted. Despite the pain she was feeling Nemu smiled at the boy and whispered in a broken soft voice, "I love you, Ichigo." All hell broke loose.

The facility blew up, Ichigo told Kisuke instead of showing him the image that would forever be etched into his mind. I killed over 1000 people and the person who was basically my mother. The facility wasn't the only thing that had been destroyed in the process. A lot of innocent people had lost their lives because of my unleashed anger and hatred. Land had torn itself apart, humans killed from the inside out, some ripped to shreds because of the power those scientists awakened inside of me. I stopped growing at 17, eight years after what became known as The Beginning. The Beginning, Kisuke, stands for The Beginning of the End. Science had just begun to fully reach its potention and suddenly it had met an end. The Beginning of life had been escalating until suddenly there was no life at all left. That is what became known as The Beginning. The thing that will never be recorded because of how devastating it is and because it tarnishes the goodness of humans. Kisuke could hear the disgust in Ichigo's voice even inside his mind. He didn't know if that disgust was directed at himself or at the humanity of back then.

Both, the boy said as he finally turned to look at him, and Kisuke saw not for the first time how old Ichigo seemed despite how young he looked. That was the past that I have been trying to forget for over a century. Three years ago someone who knew about The Beginning, came to me. I thought I was delusional for a while but no. I met him and he said he might be able to rid me of this curse. He gave me three years of freedom because after that, I would have to come back to him. It's time, Kisuke. Three years have already passed.

"Then I'll go with you, Ichigo." Kisuke vowed, his eyes showing how serious he was. No one should be allowed to suffer like Ichigo had alone. No one.

Where does Equivalent exchange fit in with that?

"It doesn't." A smile broke out on Kisuke's face as he faced Ichigo who sighed and shook his head.

Do as you please, Kisuke Urahara.